


2 AM on the highway

by SleepingReader



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Daemons, Gen, I know it sounds really dumb, it's a good story I swear, since daemons are the fuckin best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 19:28:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14940428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingReader/pseuds/SleepingReader
Summary: When you run, do you run FROM something or do you run TO something?Time to find out!





	2 AM on the highway

He felt the warm wet asphalt under his feet as he bolted down the highway. There was a growling behind him, but he didn’t dare turn.  
It was 2 AM on the highway, and he was still running from them. At first, it had been only one, but all his allies left to tag along with the enemy until only he was left. 

But for all the fear he felt of the wolves behind him, he could not help but feel the exhilaration of the wind in his hair, the asphalt under his feet.   
If the ones behind him were wolves, he thought, he was surely a hare, swift as the wind. He could almost feel it, the powerful strokes of his back paws on the asphalt and the wind roaring in his ears.   
And in that space, on that highway at 2AM, there was no reason why he couldn’t be a hare. His body, his very _soul_ told him he was one. He leaped over a pothole in the road, and only a few seconds later he heard the wolves leap as well.  
There was a light in the distance. Maybe he could reach it. Maybe he could…

But the growling brought him out of his revery. ‘ _Focus on what lies in front of you_ ’ his best friend had said before crossing over to the enemy. He nodded to himself, then kicked his legs into the next gear. The growling behind him raised in annoyance, but he could only laugh. ‘Not dead yet, bastards.’ He murmured to himself. 

The light in the distance grew closer… But so did the growling. He looked back at them. They bared their teeth. In the light of the moon and the mirages of the warm wet asphalt, they sometimes looked like fiery wolves, and sometimes like an angry mob, bearing torches. He didn’t know what was worse. The growling increased. They had seen the light too. 

A few hundred meters before the light, another light met his eye in the underbrush. A hare, just like him, looking at him and running with him for just a second. It was as if it approved of this other running soul, on the highway at 2 AM. 

There was the light…   
And before he knew it, he was there. 

He reached the lantern 2 miles away from the town he had been chased from. He hugged it and turned around to face the enemy with a grin.  
’Safe!’ He called out to them. As they stepped into the light of the single street lantern, he could see them panting, clutching each other, but also laughing, and slapping him on the back. They turned their flashlights off.  
‘Good game, Scoresby.’ His friend told him.  
He had won the game of tag.

**Author's Note:**

> From a three-word prompt of my buddy Max and their daemon Charlie, who asked for 'Joy, run, shifting' 
> 
> Hope you like it and thanks for reading!


End file.
